Archive for July, 2009

The High Maintenance Manager Work with Them or Leave Them

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Over time, I have heard from several
people who shared their stories of working with
high maintenance managers (HMM). The most interesting
were from people with family businesses whose
spouse or parent is a HMM. That adds some interesting
implications!

What happens when your HMM has crossed lines with you? Ideally
you want all conflict, especially from situations where
you feel beaten down, to cease. If you have years of
experience working with all kinds of people (including
a few HMMs), you know that striving for conflict
resolution with this type of person can sometimes
be rewarding, and is often frustrating. How far you’re
willing to take the process with this person will
depend on what has defined the person as being a
HMM and your current state of affairs (i.e. your
stress level).

Use the Help of an Advocate

Does your HMM respect (and even fear) someone at
the office? Could that person be your advocate?
This is probably the best alternative for getting
the person to change his or her approach and for
reducing the amount of your stress. This is what
I did – and have done a couple times – and it worked
well. It’s important to try to talk with the HMM
first, before going to the advocate. It is also
helpful if you, the HMM, and the advocate can meet
together. If that is not possible, a discussion
between the two of them while you are absent is
the next best thing.

The advocate needs to know and understand the HMM
from experience and needs to understand the issues
at hand. Be brief and to the point when you update
him or her, giving an executive overview” of the
problem. If they talk together in your absence,
get an update from the advocate, noting the points
discussed, the position taken by the advocate
during their meeting, and the advocate’s perceived
response by the HMM.

Then schedule a new meeting with the HMM, making
certain you are no longer steamed when you meet.
If necessary, schedule a meeting for a few days
later.

Meet With the HMM

Whether you have an advocate or not, you will need
to meet with the HMM. Because HMMs tend to talk
very fast and to think while you are talking
(rather than listen to you), remember to speak
slowly. When you take a turn to talk, count 1 or
2 seconds before you start. Be deliberate.
If necessary, write out notes before the meeting,
bring the notes with you to the meeting, and use
them. Notes will help you stay focused.

Start the conversation by mentioning something
positive. For example, “When I heard that you
were selected to manage the project, I was glad
about that because I knew you were bringing a
lot of experience to the project.”

Don’t back down on the issues. Don’t wimp out.
Don’t make excuses for the HMM. Don’t accept his
or her excuses (you can listen without agreeing).

See where the conversation goes as you discuss your
points. Are you getting any agreement? Is there
evidence that you are being manipulated? Is the
HMM trying to fight with you or is she trying to
solve problems? Can the HMM agree to disagree
with you agreeably? Or does he agree to disagree
in a disagreeable fashion?

Getting Pushback

If you don’t have an advocate, and meeting with
the HMM proves to not help very much, you need
to decide how much you can take. What other types
of changes can you make? At what point does life
become too short to deal with the situation?
Some of us put up with way too much for way too
long. After some time that can really wear you
down, making you susceptible to stress and disease.
Is it really worth it? If not, what can you do
to make a change?

~~~~~~~~~

As of this writing, I’ve come up with 18 bad habits
of high maintenance managers. I’ve had some fun
discussions with people who currently work for a
high maintenance manager and they’ve found
it helps to tell stories and
laugh in order to use the laughter to lower the
stress about their situation.

If you are currently in a work situation with a
HMM, can you find an advocate to help you out?
Will you meet with the HMM to discuss your issues?
Are you getting pushback? In the meantime,
can you discuss it with someone and laugh?

© 2005 Borgeson Consulting, Inc.

Glory Borgeson is a business coach and consultant, and the president of
Borgeson Consulting, Inc. She specializes in working with executives in the
“honeymoon phase” of a new position (typically the first two years)
to coach them to success. Glory is the newly appointed executive’s
Secret Weapon!. Top athletes have a coach; why not you?

Click here for Borgeson Consulting, Inc.

This article was originally published in The Business Express, Borgeson’s
free monthly ezine. You may subscribe by clicking here:
Ezine

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Managing Disasters Using Helicopters – An Indian’s perspective

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

“Although human subtlety makes a variety of inventions it will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.”

Whenever man has tried to supersede nature, disasters have happened. Today’s world scenario proves that development is also harnessing the destructive minds resulting in such huge disasters, which become just impossible to handle without the aid of latest technologies. With terrorism on the rise, plate tectonics becoming unpredictable and floods getting out of control, it is time for India to devise a full-fledged disaster management system.

Can we forget the floods of Orissa & earthquake in Gujarat where it was impossible to reach to the people by roads? The effects of Tsunami wash away followed by devastating snowfall in Kashmir is still fresh in people’s minds. That is where helicopters could have been a much faster and easier mode of procuring relief not only in form of distributing food packets but also providing emergency medical service.

Thus, our government and public service agencies should realize that helicopters are the most versatile machines in existence today, which can help handle such difficult situations with ease, and hence their presence in every disaster control team is inevitable.

Unfortunately, in India, commercial helicopters are realized to be only a luxurious mode of air transport for destinations otherwise normally unapproachable by air. Actually, helicopters are capable of doing a lot of public service from air medical services to law enforcement, traffic management, fire fighting, assisting in power transmission among various others. They are being extensively used in the developed countries to combat difficult situations & make life much easier & simpler for the public. Although there are more than 30 applications of helicopters in civil & commercial use, India right now can concentrate on few very essential public service requirements.

Emergency medical service (EMS)

Calamities do not come after identifying the time & place. The crowded roads & long distances add on to all the hindrances in transporting the patients from the point of accident to a hospital. Helicopters are the fastest and the safest mode to provide emergency medical services immediately at the place of accident and transport the patients to the hospitals. Where as a normal ambulance takes more time & can carry not more that two patients, a helicopter can carry six to eight patients in much less time. Air ambulance is a very common phenomenon in the west, which we should also acquire now. The bursting population and crammed roads should not play havoc with the safety of the Indian citizens.

Law Enforcement

The lawbreakers have become hi tech today. They commit a crime and escape . It becomes difficult to chase them through our crammed roads. Thus, the importance of the helicopter as a tool for the Law enforcement community is growing. During daylight, or at night with a high power searchlight, the helicopter can prove invaluable when searching for lost persons or for suspects at a crime scene. The use of even more sophisticated equipment such as the forward-looking infrared (FLIR) system is also a possibility. A helicopter easily accomplishes transporting needed ground units to areas where accessibility is limited.

Fire Fighting

Helicopters are very useful even in fire fighting. Airborne command and control at the scene of a large fire could insure that the right fire fighting assets are at the right place at the right time. Fire fighting agencies need many kinds of tools to respond to emergencies, and the helicopter can provide a fast and flexible tool to assist these agencies. Helicopter ” water bombers” are capable of discharging thousands of liters over fires & save the forests.

Traffic Management

India being such a vast & diverse country with a huge population can actually use helicopters for establishing an efficient & fast management system between the rural & urban areas. This exercise would not only be time saving but also highly cost effective. When properly utilized, the helicopter has been proven across the world to be a highly cost effective means of increasing the efficiency of existing sources of the city’s administration. With roads becoming overcrowded, it is important to start thinking of harnessing the third dimension in this century.

Multiple Use

If the intended use of a helicopter is defined before purchase, it can serve multiple purposes. It will clearly dictate the type of helicopter & onboard equipment. For maximum utilization, the primary & secondary missions have to be set out from over 30 known uses that the helicopter has been pressed into all over the world. They range from aerial application to search & rescue, electronic news gathering, package express , ranching, exploration, mineral prospecting among others.

For example, a helicopter used for policing can be smaller & require much less equipment than one for a dedicated Air Medical mission. Thus, if the primary mission is decided as law enforcement, a secondary mission might be emergency medical transport. Such decision will also gain support from the hospital community who might help pay for the onboard medical equipment. Once the intended uses & the level of onboard equipment is established, the weight and cost of the helicopter & the equipment needs to be compared with the budget. If both, the helicopter (weight wise) and the budget (cost wise) are strained, priorities must be established- i.e., for the primary and then the secondary missions.

Keeping in mind the missions, our government and public service agencies can fully utilize the services of a helicopter.

Accounts of lives saved by helicopters with emergency medical personnel on board are numerous. It is predicted that world helicopters used in these areas will more than double during the next decade. Thus, it is time for us Indians also to evaluate our agency needs and see if the state helicopter program can help increase our efficiency and effectiveness in serving the needs of our community.

Mehnaz Ansari

Working on a project for help identify the potential use of helicopters in disaster management in India.

I have a keen interest for writing for a cause.

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Apathetic Employees Can Anything Get Them Moving

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Have you ever wondered if anything can get your employees to care about the work they’re doing?

Managers who are self-starters, who enjoy and are motivated by the work they do and the organization they work for, are sometimes puzzled by the perceived lack of motivation of their subordinates. The operative word here is “perceived”, because they may, in fact, be motivated — just not in the same way as you.

If you think about it realistically, you don’t necessarily want them to love the work, do you? What you expect is that they perform well on the job and contribute to the success of your department. They can do that without being cheerleaders, because everyone is motivated by something. It’s a matter of finding out what it is.

Here are a few of the causes that might make your people tick:

Career ambition

These people want to move up in the world, either in your organization or another. If they can clearly see the relationship between their performance in their current positions and the chance of promotion, that will do it for them. Your job is to help them see the possibilities.

Approval and validation

In his groundbreaking 1982 fable, “The One Minute Manager”, Ken Blanchard urged managers to “catch them doing something right.” The idea was to give immediate positive feedback to people, which immediately makes them feel valued. Many people long for approval and validation, and will work hard to achieve a goal that will provide it for them. Your job is to provide positive strokes whenever possible.

Competition

The sales environment is the obvious place to see competition among colleagues and peers. Often it’s their competitive nature that makes great salespeople. But this personality trait is not confined to one discipline, and some people will perform well on the job in order to be seen as the best. This can be tricky to manage, and your job is to enable an outlet for this need in one employee without creating enmity in the others.

Money

Let’s face it, financial compensation is an important reason to work in the first place, and there’s nothing wrong with that. For some employees, it’s a powerful incentive and motivation. Your job is to demonstrate the connection between on-the-job achievement and compensation. Of course, if you can’t legitimately show that connection because it’s not there, you may have an employee who will never be motivated in that position.

As a manager, you need to find out what motivates the individuals that make up your team, and then do what you can to help them make performance on the job the factor that satisfies their particular needs.

Remember, what is rewarded is repeated. It’s a matter of discovering and offering the right rewards.

Helen Wilkie is a professional keynote speaker, workshop leader and author specializing in applied workplace communication. Read more articles on her website at http://www.mhwcom.com Subscribe to Helen’s free e-zine, “Communi-keys”, and get your free 40-page e-book, 23 Ideas You Can Use RIGHT NOW to Communicate and Succeed in Your Business Career!

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Motivating Teams

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Introduction:

Working with teams, whether as leader of a single team or manager of several, is an essential part of a manager’s remit. Teamwork is rapidly becoming the preferred practice in many organizations as traditional corporate hierarchies give way to flat, multi-skilled working methods. This section is an indispensable and practical guide to leading teams with expertise, covering subjects such as defining the skills required to complete a project, establishing trust between individuals within a team, and maximizing the performance of that team. The section is vital reading for any one involved in teamwork, whether as a novice or as an experienced team leader.

This month we will discuss:

1) Understanding How teams work

Understanding How Teams Work

Teamwork is the foundation of all successful management. Managing teams well is a major and stimulating challenge to any manager, form novice to experienced hand.

1) What Makes A Good Team?

A true team is a living, constantly changing, dynamic force in which a number of people come together to work. Team members discuss their objectives, assess ideas, make decisions, and work towards their targets together.

A) Working Together

All successful teams demonstrate the same fundamental features: strong and effective leadership; the establishment of precise objectives; making informed decisions; the ability to act quickly upon these decision; communicating freely; mastering the requisite skills and techniques to fulfill the project in hand; providing clear targets for the team to work towards; and – above all – finding the right balance of people to work together for the common good of the team.

B) Analyzing Team Tasks

Successful teams can be formed by 2 to 25 or more people, but much more important than size is shape – the pattern of working into which team member settle to perform their given tasks. There are three basic methods of performing a task:

Repetitive task and familiar work require each team member to have a fixed role, which is fulfilled independently, as on assembly lines;

Projects that require some creative input require team members to have fixed roles and working procedures, but also work in unison, as when generating new products;

Work that demands constant creative input and personal contributions requires people to work very closely as partners. This style of working is prevalent among senior management.

Working Well Together

A team of manager’s discuses a new plan that has been put forward by a member of the team. All of the team members are free to join the discussion. Later, the team leader will assess the contribution.

C) Achieving Potential

There is no limit to the potential of a good team. Given an “impossible” task, team members will reinforce each other’s confidence as they seek to turn the “impossible” into reality. The collective ability to innovate is stronger than that of individuals because the combined brainpower of a team, however small in number, exceeds that of any one person. By harnessing this power, a team can go beyond simple, useful improvements to achieve real breakthrough. For example, in one company an engineering team was asked to double machine reliability. They thought it impossible, but went on to produce a plan that pebbled performance.

Working Towards Understanding
Encouraging open communication and the free flow of information within a team ensures that each member is fully aware of the talents and experience available within the group.

Note:

Remember that team members must support each other
Break long-term aims into short term projects.

D) Knowing Team Goals

Once a team has been formed, the next major step is to establish its goals. There is little point in having a team that is raring to go if its members are all pursuing disparate aims. Goal may very well change over a team’s existence: for example if a new product is being launched on the market, the first priority will be for the team to concentrate on research into its competition. If the aim is to improve customer satisfaction, the first goal will be to find ways to provide a higher standard of service.

According to the circumstance, teamwork goals might include:

Increasing the rate of productivity in a manufacturing company;

Improving the quality of production;

involving all employees in decision making process to increase job satisfaction;

Looking at working systems and practices to reduce time wastage;

Working together with customers to build closer relationships so that the need of the market can be better understood.

Improving Performance

In a survey of 230 personnel executives, the American society of training and development found that teamwork led to a substantial rise in performance in key areas.

Cultural Differences

Cross-functional, multi-disciplinary, interdepartmental teams are spreading fast in the west, having been established in Japan for many years. In some British companies, managers already spend half their time working in such teams; and the democratic attitude of many North American’s has helped them to adapt well to this way of working. Continental Europeans still tend to be more comfortable with traditional hierarchical systems, but increasing competitive pressure and the need for speed-your-market are now forcing change on mangers in many industries.

Note: Allocate a clear deadline for each of your projects.

www.careerpath.cc

Manik Thapar (MBA)

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